


My Lab is Your Lab

by recoveringrabbit



Series: all great words [6]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, Gen, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Scottage fic, because I wrote it before I saw the film, because I'm never going to write anything that is tbh, minor clintasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 23:09:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18670243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recoveringrabbit/pseuds/recoveringrabbit
Summary: In which Fitz has more than one shock, Natasha drinks a great deal of tea, Deke confuses everyone, and an alien invasion takes place off-stage.[Rabbit tries to frivol, or a moderately crack-y idea taken as unseriously as she can manage]





	My Lab is Your Lab

**Author's Note:**

> My sister said to me, "you know what I wish you would write? a story with all my faves." I didn't get Spider-Man, but she thought this would suffice.
> 
> ENDGAME SPOILERS:
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> she had a rough time.

All things considered, Fitz had probably had _weirder_ days, and he’d definitely had more _difficult_ ones, but for sheer _what the flipping heck_ it would be hard to top this.

Staring at the trio crowded on his front stoop, he choked on the end of toast he had been chewing when he heard the knock and shoved Mops back with one socked foot. “Er,” he said, trying not to sputter crumbs but, judging by the way Mops suddenly lunged at the hardwood floor, unsuccessful, “what? What the—?”

Tony Stark lowered his sunglasses and regarded him evenly through a black eye. “It’s Fitz, right? Agent Fitz?”

“Doctor Fitz-Simmons,” he corrected, automatically. “I’m not—down, Mops!—with SHIELD anymore. What is this—”

“Good, good,” said Tony Stark, “I respect that. Way to keep separate lives separate. I can’t do it myself. These two”—he made a gesture more expansive than necessary to encompass the two people next to him—“are masters. Do you all know each other? You were all in the same club at the same time?”

“Hi,” said the Black Widow.

Hawkeye nodded, inscrutable behind his own pair of sunglasses—which were totally out of place in the Scottish autumn, it hadn’t been sunny for ten minutes together since last week—and crouched to pet Mops. “We haven’t met. Heard of each other, though. You made those gas arrows for me, and the ones with the knock-out stuff.”

The news that _the Hawkeye_ was familiar with him by name about knocked Fitz off his feet, but he played it cool. “Yeah, that was me. Well, me and my wife. Well, she wasn’t my wife then, she was my lab partner. They were actually her idea, but she needed a bit of help with the mechanism—it was the first time we tried working with dendrotoxin, you see, and we kept—”

“Not that this isn’t interesting,” said Tony Stark, “but could we continue the chat inside? We’re kind of trying to be incognito here.”

Belatedly, Fitz realized that all three were sporting the baseball caps that, to SHIELD, signified “don’t be suspicious” and he hastily stepped back to let them in. “Of course, of course. Er, you wouldn’t mind, would you, taking off your shoes?” He avoided dealing with Tony Stark’s raised eyebrows by gesturing helplessly to the neat line of footwear just inside the entryway. “I’ve just finished the floors, you see.”

 Mr. Stark remained skeptical, but did as requested; the Black Widow and Hawkeye—Agents Romanoff and Barton, Fitz reminded himself, if they still went by agent—obeyed without a murmur, and before Fitz knew it he had two sets of beat-up combat boots and one very expensive set of trainers resting in a neat line next to Archie’s outgrown galoshes, and three of the _actual Avengers_ milling around his lounge. Well, he said “milling”—Mr. Barton retreated to the bay window and stood peering out from behind the drapes with his back to the room, while Ms. Romanoff appeared content to take the chair and observe from a stationary position. Only Tony Stark roamed to and fro, running hands along the mantelpiece and bookshelves, picking up the knickknacks and pictures scattered here and there. Fitz looked down at Mops, who waved her tail and lolled her tongue with her best moral support. “D’you want a hot drink?” he asked, desperately clinging to the normal niceties. “Or a cold one? We haven’t got much in, but—”

“Tea, thanks,” said Ms. Romanoff. “Just a little milk. Clint will have coffee as strong as you can make it.”

“Never strong enough in this country,” Mr. Barton said without turning around. “But thanks.”

Tony Stark waved the question off, and Fitz fled to the kitchen with Mops at his heels. After putting the kettle on to boil—he wasn’t brave enough to make them wait longer than he had to, even if he did need a second to wrap his head around it—he dug his phone from his pocket and sent a text to Mack:

_Do you know why Tony Stark has just appeared on my doorstep with Hawkeye and the Black Widow_?

Ten a.m. in Perthshire being four a.m. at the Lighthouse, he didn’t have much hope of a response. Unless SHIELD was actively running an operation—but did the Avengers even work with SHIELD anymore? They probably would have heard about that from Daisy. And Fitz vaguely remembered Tony Stark retiring from peacekeeping around the time he married Pepper Potts, which was before Archie was born, at the very least. As he prepared the hot drinks, he tried to remember the last time the Avengers had done anything and came up blank past the aforementioned wedding, which had been notable not only for its lavishly tasteful aesthetic but also for the attempted assassination neatly stopped by a blow of Thor’s hammer. And then, silence. So what were half of the Avengers doing together incognito in the Scottish countryside? And how in the world did they end up here?

Tea tray in both hands and Mops gamboling around his ankles, he returned to the lounge determined to ask just that. Before he could do more than set down the drinks, though, Tony Stark swooped in and took control of the conversation:

“Nice family,” he said, holding up the picture Deke had taken on Georgie’s first birthday. “Your wife, you said? Who used to be your lab partner.”

“Still is my lab partner,” Fitz said, handing the Black Widow her tea in Jemma’s favorite mug.

Tony Stark hummed. “Is she here, by the way? And your kids? I assume not, or we would have heard them before now. I’ve got one of my own—he’s two, and he’s not even quiet when he’s sleeping.”

“Takes after his dad,” Mr. Barton said from the window. Fitz took the tray over and held it while the other man dumped half the sugar bowl into his cup.

“No,” he answered Stark’s question, “Archie’s at school, and Jemma took Georgie to a soft play place so I could do the floors—she’s got a knack for making a mess exactly where you just cleaned, so we have to get her out of the house.” The smile that tended to hover over his face when speaking of his daughter vanished as soon as a terrible thought appeared. He whipped around to face Stark. “Are they in danger? Are _we_ in danger? Is, I don’t know, an army of robot assassins about to lay siege to the house?” Or regular assassins, his mind spat out. Or aliens. Or powered people with a grudge against SHIELD. Or—well, they had emergency plans in place for a reason. Fingers shaking but feelings set, he put down the tray and started for the secret compartment in the hearth where they hid the ICERs and several pistols.

From behind him, the Black Widow’s gentle answer held barely-hidden amusement. “Only a SHIELD agent would go straight to robot assassins.”

“If you knew what we’ve dealt with in our time,” he said, turning to her with his hands on his hips, “you wouldn’t be surprised at where my mind goes.”

Her eyes were steady and, he was surprised to find, sympathetic. “I’m not,” she said. “But no, no robot assassins. You and your family should be perfectly safe, as long as we act quickly.”

“But why?” he demanded, fighting the urge to bury his face in his hands. “We haven’t been in the business for years, we do ordinary science and have an ordinary life. Archie just started reception. Why is this happening now?”

Tony Stark made a noise, pushing himself off the wall he had been leaning against and coming to stand in the middle of the room. “It might be good for you to consider the possibility that this has nothing to do with you or your family.”

“Stark,” Agent Barton said conversationally, still in his corner, “has anyone ever told you you have a knack for saying exactly the wrong thing?”

“Only every day of my life,” Stark answered, then sighed and turned to Fitz. “Look, it actually doesn’t have anything to do with you, exactly. We”—he indicated the other two—“have got ourselves into a bit of a situation, and you just happen to be the person best placed to get us out of it.”

“We need your help,” Agent Romanoff said to Fitz, before pointedly turning to Stark. “That’s how people generally say it.”

Stark rolled his eyes, but somehow Fitz got the impression that neither he nor Agent Romanoff totally meant their conversation. “Fine, yes, we need your help. The thing is, we were kind of on a mission and hit a little bit of a roadblock—”

“If you call being run off the road into the River Tay a little roadblock,” Agent Barton interjected.

“—and all our electronics were understandably ruined,” Stark continued, seemingly pretending he had never been interrupted. “Not even I can create perfectly water-tight tech all the time. Particularly when there’s no reason to expect it will go under water.”

“We all have lessons to learn,” said Agent Romanoff, sipping her tea. Stark rolled his eyes again.

“So, here we are in the middle of Scotland, on foot, no tech except my suit and Barton’s bow—which is pointless without his fancy arrows—and we’re expecting an invasion in about...oh, sixteen hours—”

“An invasion of what?” Fitz squawked, though he knew the answer would be “aliens” before Stark even said it.

“But don’t worry,” Stark added, “they’re not particularly technologically savvy aliens, which is why we have advance notice—the Guardians are a little tied up at the moment or they’d handle it themselves—”

“The who?”

“Great band. So we came to you to get our tech replaced, basically.”

Speech done, Stark put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. Fitz looked from him to Agent Romanoff to Agent Barton, then slowly sunk to sit on the low stone ledge of the hearth. He probably looked ridiculous, knees by his ears, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “Okay,” he said slowly, “let me see if I’ve got this right. You’re about to go fight off an alien invasion, just the three of you, and you need me to be Q.”

“You got it,” Stark said, lifting his arm and pushing up his sleeve to get at his watch. “I’ve got the plans for the tech we had—Hill says you have a lab here?”

“Deputy Director Hill?” Fitz repeated, almost reeling under the weight of this new information, “how does she—I mean, our location—”

Stark waved him off. “Nothing is a secret to Maria. She wasn’t second-in-command to Nick Fury all those years without learning a thing or two.”

“But she keeps tabs on us?”

“You have some mutual friends,” Agent Romanoff said. “You know Bobbi Morse, right? And Cameron Klein? And didn’t Fury pull you and your wife out of the ocean awhile back?”

“Well, yes,” Fitz said, “but I didn’t—”

“The Mouse Hole,” Agent Barton put in. Agent Romanoff nodded.

“Several of us utilized the Mouse Hole during the Fall of SHIELD—the first one. Maria wasn’t about to let the inventor of tech like that just disappear, no matter how much he wanted to.”

“Okay,” Fitz said slowly, “okay, okay, but _I’m_ r eally the best you’ve got? Me, here in our lab in the old stables?”

For the first time, Barton moved from the window, leaving his cup on the sill. “For this moment, you’re not only the best we’ve got, you’re _all_ we’ve got. There’s no way we have enough time to have the tech rebuilt in Stark’s labs and sent here, and there’s no one else around who has the capabilities you do. Without you, we’re dead in the water.”

Fitz blinked up at Agent Barton, who maintained his steely stare without cracking. Tony Stark might have the silver tongue, he thought, and Agent Romanoff might have legendary powers of persuasion, but something about Agent Barton made you believe him instinctively—his straight shooting clearly applied metaphorically as well as literally. Suddenly, Fitz thought of May: Same quiet watching. Same rock-solid truth.

“I think that’s the longest speech I’ve ever heard you make,” said Stark.

Barton’s gaze flicked away. “I like to save them for when it counts.”

“True,” Agent Romanoff said, standing and rolling her neck, “haven’t you ever heard Wanda’s ‘why I became an Avenger’ story? We might not have half the team without Clint.”

“I take offence to that statement,” Stark said.

Whoever was right about the Avengers, Agent Barton was certainly right about saving his speeches for when it counted—before he knew it, Fitz had taken his guests into the old stone lab and was examining Stark’s plans at the miniature holotable that had been an anniversary gift to Jemma, head canted as he blew the components apart and put them back together again. “Okay, some of this we have, but I’m going to have to make most of it from scratch. Do the materials matter especially, or can we use what’s quick?”

Stark looked up from his perusal of the mass spectrometer. “Well, it can’t be plastic.”

“Of course not,” Fitz scoffed. Honestly, did the man think he was an utter imbecile? “I’m just not sure we have this much stock on hand.”

“Only at the ignition point.”

“Okay. So here’s what we’ll do.” He blew apart the specs again, separating the individual pieces into groups. “This, this, and this we’ll do straight away on the 3-D printer in polycarbonate—they’ll be the quickest, and we can do them all at once. Then this and this in steel, which will mean they’re ready by the time we’re done with the internal wiring. The ignition point is last, but it shouldn’t take very long, and we can assemble most of it beforehand. Do you need anything, Agent Romanoff?”

She had perched herself on the high stool Archie sat on when he came to observe his parents at work. “Just some guns, if you have them.”

“Don’t even have to make them. And Agent Barton, you’ll need some arrows?”

“If it isn’t too much trouble,” he drawled.

“None at all,” Fitz said. He looked at the plan one more time, feeling his heart race with adrenaline. Somehow, the sensation was not totally unpleasant. “Okay, let’s do this.”

“Montage time,” said Tony Stark, picking up a pair of goggles and snapping them over his eyes.

It kind of felt like a montage, when Fitz thought about it afterward; he just put his head down and concentrated on the work, and large portions of the time seemed to disappear. Once he remembered looking up from the bit of wire he was splicing to see Tony Stark drawing something in the air over the holotable. The few minutes after he handed Agent Barton a few arrowheads to try stuck out, because the sonic booms rattled the windows and he burnt himself with his handheld welder. Agent Romanoff got tired of watching and made herself some more tea, pulling out her phone to read something in Russian that made Agent Barton laugh when she read bits out loud but clearly required a better knowledge of the language than Fitz had to get the joke. Or maybe, since it appeared to be something about Putin, a better knowledge of Russian politics. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how long they worked, because he knew roughly how long it would take to make all the necessary pieces, but he didn’t really feel the time passing. Until his phone rang in his pocket and jolted him back to the normal flow of time, and he realized that Jemma should have been back long before.

“Where are you?” he asked, picking up immediately.

“Oh, Fitz, I’m sorry!” she said, “I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

“Oh, er, I haven’t—I lost track of time myself,” he said, looking around the room. “But you’re usually home by now. Are you all right?”

“Yes, I ran into Jo at the soft play, and we’ve had lunch together. I thought I might as well run the errands until Archie is done—Georgie’s being good as gold, she won’t mind. Will you?”

“Always, but not enough to stop you. I’ve...er, got caught up in a project. It’s better perhaps if you stay out.”

“Anything interesting?”

Fitz eyed Tony Stark testing out the trigger on a weapon that looked like something out of _Doctor Who_ and made a non-committal noise. “It’s hard to explain, at least. Tell you later.”

“Can’t wait. Oh, and Fitz, did you see the message from Deke? What shall we have for tea, do you think?”

“I haven’t looked at my phone. What did it say?”

“He’s swinging by this evening and wants to stay the night. I told him he’s welcome, of course, but—”

“No!” Fitz said, horrified at the vision of their exuberant grandson in the company of Tony Stark, not to mention the two legendary agents and assassins. “Jemma, he can’t come tonight.”

“Whyever not? He has a key, Fitz, it’s hardly as though I can say—”

“We’ve...got company.”

“We what?” There was a beat of silence during which he screwed up his eyes and cursed his tendency to blurt. Then Jemma spoke again, much quieter and deadly serious. “Has their car broken down? Do I need to phone our mechanic friend?”

Stupid, stupid—now he was making _her_ worry. “Purring like a cat,” he said, using their agreed-upon code for ‘no I am not in imminent danger, all is well’. “It’s...Jemma, do you remember when we were at SciOps and we first started the ICERs? I mean first, first started. The first thing we did with that idea.”

“Yes, we...oh. _Oh_. I see.”

“Yes,” he said, relieved, “and there were some...associated parts. Not to the project, but to its end implementation.”

He could almost hear her eyes widening on the other end of the line. “ _Oh_. Well. Yes, perhaps this is not the best evening for Deke to come.”

“Maybe not.”

“But I’ve told him he’s welcome—he’ll already be on his way. I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done about it. You know how he is about checking his phone.”

Fitz groaned, very aware of exactly how bad Deke was about checking his phone. Jemma was right; there was nothing for it. “Well, that’s that then. I guess all we can do is order a curry.”

“Brilliant,” she said. “And now I’ll let you get back to it. See you soon. Love you.”

“Yeah, love you too.”

Checking the time again, Fitz saw there was about an hour before they should expect his family’s return; comparing that hour with the list of projects still to accomplish, he realized they would never be done in time. That could prove a problem. However well-behaved Georgie had been, Jemma would be hoping for a respite, and Archie—who took to school like a duck to water, but chafed at having to follow someone else’s agenda for what he should be learning—nearly always required his da’s undivided attention for an hour or so after school. But he wouldn’t be able to leave the lab, and he could hardly have Archie in here when his attention would be necessarily divided—oh, shove it, he thought crossly as something very nearly blew up in front of him, and then he didn’t have time to sort the problem for a good little while.

By shouting at Stark every ten minutes to keep on schedule, he managed to accelerate the timeline so they only had about an hour’s worth of work to do while they waited for the last parts to finish fabrication. Unfortunately, the parts that remained were the most fiddly and demanding. “Mr. Stark,” he said, shutting off his welder and peering out the window, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to—”

Archie’s voice cut off the end of Fitz’s sentence, increasing its ear-piercing tone as he came pounding up the garden path: “DA DA DA DA.”

“He’s got visitors,” Fitz could hear Jemma saying, “Archie, just wait—no, darling, don’t eat Mops’s ear—”

Jemma’s clear distraction with Georgie allowed Archie free run, and his shouts quickly fell off to be replaced by enthusiastic beating at the wooden lab door. “Da we drew constellations today! Everybody else made theirs up even though I told them real ones!”

“Your son, I assume,” said Tony Stark, working swiftly and carefully while wearing a giant set of magnifying glasses.

There being no point in denying it, Fitz didn’t. Instead, he bowed to the inevitable and opened the door, dropping to one knee to better catch Archie, who lunged at him for a bear hug. Wrapping his arms around his son, Fitz stood and hugged back. “Did your friends like being told their constellations were wrong?”

Archie shook his head solemnly. “But I was wrong too. I drew Ursa Major and the Corona Borealis and Leo Minor but the paper wasn’t big enough so I had to squish them.”

“Perhaps you could pretend the paper was folded and some of the sky was hiding?”

“Mama said we could cut it and add some paper in to make it right.”

“That’s a good solution too.” Fitz let Archie slide to the ground, but caught his hand to keep him from going into the lab and shut the door most of the way behind him. “Did Mama go to the house?”

“No, Georgie went—” Archie stopped short, pointing towards the garden where, indeed, a frazzled Jemma appeared to be attempting to keep their daughter from trampling the last of the summer squash. Mops leapt and darted around them, making the whole thing infinitely more complicated—as she often did. Fitz had to stop himself from smiling fondly. Beside him, Archie sighed. “Georgie is rather a handful sometimes.”

“So were you, when you were her age. Shall we try to help?”

“Mama said you were working on something,” Archie said, craning his neck to see into the lab. “Can I help, Da? I promise not to play with Mama’s slides again.”

_That_ had been a right mess. The memory only renewed Fitz’s conviction that Archie needed to stay far away from the project at hand. “Not this time, my man. Mama needs your help more than I do right now, I think.”

“I always have to help Georgie,” Archie grumbled, but he followed Fitz obediently and even ran the last part of the way into the garden by himself. Fitz came a few steps after, vaulting over the garden wall just to prove he still could. Jemma looked up gratefully.

“I may have spoken too soon,” she said, “Madam could certainly have used some time on the naughty step. The car doesn’t have quite the same dampening effect.”

“You could have just brought her home,” Fitz said, but he knew his face didn’t agree, and Jemma’s said she knew it too.

“I thought it would be better to let you work uninterrupted on...whatever it is you’re doing. Have you finished?” _Please say you’ve finished_ , her eyes pleaded. Fitz let his own answer, with regret. She sighed. “Only I’ve just had an email from Mack—he says he doesn’t know why they’ve come, but he needs my help rather urgently for an unrelated (he thinks) issue. I don’t suppose you could—”

“I’d love to, you know I—”

“—it shouldn’t take any time, they’re just sending over—”

“—isn’t space for another person in there and—”

“—tried to say it could wait til Deke gets here but he didn’t think—”

“I’ll watch them.”

Both Fitz and Jemma turned sharply towards Agent Barton, who had apparently snuck up on them while they talked. Fitz hadn’t thought they were speaking loudly enough for that, but decided Agent Barton was a spy and could no doubt move silently if he wished to, even down a pebbled path. Jemma, apparently unbothered by logistics and handling the whole thing with much more grace than Fitz had, recovered first.

“Oh, no,” she said, brushing her hands together not-quite casually, “we couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“You really could,” said the Black Widow, coming from the direction of the house—when had she even left the lab? Fitz couldn’t recall. “He’s great with kids. He has nieces and nephews who just adore him.”

“Well, but,” Jemma said, “Georgie’s in a bit of a mood today—”

“Looks fine to me,” Agent Barton said, observing Georgie where she was—oh Lord—pulling a carrot out of the ground and eating it. “I’m not doing anything right now. If there’s something you need to be doing, I can take over here.”

“Well,” Jemma said again, looking to Fitz for an opinion. He shrugged. They trusted Hawkeye to protect them from alien invasions and killer robots; trusting him with their children seemed only a step or two beyond that. But only she knew how urgent this thing from Mack actually was, so only she could make the final call. “All right,” she said finally. “Archie, Georgie, come here!”

Archie came obediently, Georgie less so but quickly enough that she didn’t require a sterner warning. Jemma crouched to take their grubby hands. “This is Mr. Barton. Da and I have got to do some dangerous work in the lab, so listen to him until we’re done.”

“When Neffer?” Georgie asked, clearly skeptical.

“He’s coming,” Jemma promised, “but listen to him exactly as much as you always do. Use your best judgment.”

Archie canted his head, looking up at Agent Barton. “What science do you know?”

Agent Barton shrugged. “A little practical aerodynamics. Mostly math, in my field. But I can do handstands, can you?”

“Nooo,” Archie said, “I can summersault.”

“Good start,” said Hawkeye, “but we can do better.”

Jemma scooped Georgie up and deposited her on the other side of the garden wall, then hurried up the path to the lab, leaving Fitz to corral Mops out of the garden and follow after. Mops’s refusal to cooperate meant that by the time he got to the lab, Jemma had already put her hair up, shrugged her lab-coat on, and ignored Tony Stark long enough to begin pulling up the information from Mack. The man turned to Fitz as he came panting in—Mops could still lead them on a merry chase, if she chose. “I was just asking the beautiful Doctor Fitz-Simmons if she had come to help.”

“I told him I had my own work, thank you,” she said without turning from the computer.

“It’s not really her specialty,” Fitz said, going to stand between them. Tony Stark couldn’t actually have the mental attention of a four-year-old or he wouldn’t have accomplished all he had, but Fitz hadn’t seen anything to prove otherwise so far. “And we’ve got it well in hand, I think. Be done in plenty of time.”

“Will you be staying for dinner, Mr. Stark?” Jemma asked, reaching above her bench for a notepad. “We thought we’d order in a curry; our friend is coming round and it’s easier.”

“We don’t have anywhere else to go,” Stark said easily, “but you can’t exactly fight aliens on an empty stomach.” He paused, peering at Jemma. When she didn’t respond, he whistled and looked at Fitz. “Nothing, really. Most people at least have questions.”

“Aliens aren’t really that exciting to us,” Fitz answered. “We’ve seen it all, more or less.”

“That’s why you left SHIELD, I suppose.” Stark shrugged one lazy shoulder. “They woo you in with promises of doing great things, and then it turns out that the great things you get to do aren’t that fun. I’d rather do the great things I want to, even if I have to fund ’em myself. My labs are better than anyone else’s—no offence to your little step-up here.”

“None taken.” They didn’t have Tony Stark’s unlimited resources or his desire to innovate for innovation’s sake; they didn’t need more than what they had, and anything they wanted they could fund themselves, in time.

“But be honest”—Stark swung around to direct his question to Jemma—“this is not how you imagined yourself working with me. Because you were one of those girls that did imagine it, weren’t you.”

Fitz expected her to brush off the comment like she had all the rest, but Jemma put down her pen and turned to meet Stark’s questioning gaze with a level one of her own. “I suppose,” she said, “but not like you think. You didn’t figure much into my dreams at all, you see. If I was ever going to work with you, I knew from the start that it would have been because we were both working with Fitz, and that was always more interesting and exciting to me.” Sending Fitz one of her eye-smiles that felt like a kiss, she let Stark feel all the sting of her polite English put-down.

He clutched his chest dramatically. “Shot through the heart. But since it’s your husband, I guess I can get over it eventually.”

And then, thank anyone listening, Stark settled down to work and didn’t speak again until they reached a necessary stopping point, leaving Fitz free to assist Jemma with the analysis for Mack—not that she needed his help, but he enjoyed being her second set of hands. He took the opportunity to fill her in on the general situation: threat, Hill, River Tey and all. “But what kind of aliens,” she whispered when he had reached the end. Fitz shrugged a response.

“Not very exciting or dangerous ones, apparently.”

“Pity.” Her forehead crinkled up. “You don’t suppose they’d be willing to get some tissue samples for me, do you? Just in case.”

He snuck a glance over his shoulder. “I’d ask the Black Widow, if I were you. She’ll know if it’s feasible.”

“Was she drinking out of my favorite mug, Fitz?”

“I didn’t think you’d mind?”

“No,” Jemma said, “but what am I meant to drink from now?”

By the time they emerged—Jemma’s analysis completed and sent, the anti-alien cannons resting and cooling prior to the final stage of the process, and Stark fiddling with one last thing—Agent Barton had abandoned handstands and turned to juggling whatever, apparently, he could fit in his palm, much to the delight of Archie, Georgie, and a nearly-as-awed Deke. Their grandson unfolded his long limbs and stood when he saw them, loping over with the adoring Mops at his heels. “I don’t think this is more exciting than the time the drying caught on fire,” he said by way of greeting, “but it’s pretty close. I didn’t know you knew the Avengers! Daisy always said you didn’t.”

“We haven’t,” Jemma said, giving Deke a warm hug, “but apparently we have a great many mutual friends. You do know you can’t say anything about this?”

Deke sighed heavily. “I figured. Yeah, I swear on my grandfather’s grave. That’s a good one, isn’t it? It’s usually grandmother’s, but—”

“No,” Fitz said quickly, seeing Jemma’s face go grey, “not a good one.”

Deke noticed too, and ducked his head like a dog. “Sorry, Granma. I won’t do it again.”

“I know you won’t,” Jemma said bravely. “We thought we’d have curry for tea, is that all right? Or have you just come from—”

“Nope, curry’s great. I’ve just been in Norway. I think I’ve eaten enough mushy fish to last me my whole life. And someone else’s, too.”

“DEKE,” Georgie roared from her spot on the grass, “COME HERE,” and Deke threw out a _sorry got to go_ before obeying without question. Fitz watched their grandson bend down to let his aunt put a flower behind his ear. Beside him, Jemma brushed the backs of their hands together.

“She’s got him wrapped round her finger, doesn’t she?”

“Takes after her mum—runs in the family, being entrancing.”

She sent him a look that gave him shivers all over— _I’ll thank you for that later_ —then sighed. “I don’t suppose we could go together to get the curry, and leave our progeny here? There’s plenty of adults.”

“Yes, but responsible ones?”

“I’m sure Agent Romanoff is very responsible.”

“But it’s hardly fair to leave her with three children _and_ Tony Stark.”

“Oh, Fitz. Deke’s much better, you know he is.”

“I know.” And he did; he just loved her indignation on their grandson’s behalf. She rested her head on his shoulder, just for a second, and he thought he could hardly be happier than he was right now. Even if the moment _was_ immediately shattered by Tony Stark coming up behind them and demanding to know what, exactly, their connection was to the Helicarriers that came to the rescue in Sokovia.

How it ended up was: Jemma took Deke, Archie, and Georgie to get the curry; Tony Stark disappeared back into the lab to do God-knew-what; Agents Barton and Romanoff helped Fitz finagle the table in the kitchen to be able to seat four Fitz-Simmonses, one Shaw, and three Avengers. By pulling the table into the centre of the kitchen they were able to squeeze enough chairs around, though Fitz was going to have to make Georgie sit in his lap.

“It would be easier,” he explained apologetically as Agent Romanoff— _the_ Agent Romanoff!—scattered glasses and forks around the table with one hand and drank their cheap Sainsbury wine with the other, “if we could give the kids their tea first and then send them to bed, but they demand to eat with Deke whenever he’s here. It might as well be the end of the world if we say no.”

“I always found that saying a bit of a misnomer,” Agent Romanoff said. “In my experience, the world usually almost ends with very little fuss.”

“Ours too,” Fitz said, remembering, and she raised her wine glass in silent salute. “But he doesn’t come often enough to make it worth fighting.”

“We won’t mind.”

Fitz nearly tripped over Agent Barton, who had stopped in the path between the range and the table and was staring at the outside wall with his arms crossed over his chest. “Have you ever thought of expanding?” he said, apropos of...well, actually, Fitz knew what.

“We haven’t decided if we want to give up that much of the garden,” he answered, “and we’re not sure about matching the stonework.”

“What about wattle-and-daub?” Agent Barton asked, and then before Fitz knew it he was talking about home renovation with Clint Barton, as though the Amazing Hawkeye had retired from the circus and started hosting one of those d-i-y shows on BBC 4. Agent Romanoff put in her own commentary, gently teasing her partner if the opportunity arose but quick to pull out her phone to show Fitz pictures from Clint’s ( _Clint’s_ ) farm ( _farm!_ ) where his sister and her children lived.

“Every time he goes,” she said fondly, “he does something new. Of course he generally has to leave before the project is done, which drives Laura up the wall.”

“Whose fault is it that I’m leaving before I plan?”

“ _I_ make it up to her,” Agent Romanoff said, “which is more than you’ve ever done.”

Agent Barton made a noise, not quite agreement but not quite disagreement either, and kicked his foot up to rest against the bottom rung of Agent Romanoff’s chair. That must be what it looks like, Fitz thought as he scooted around the table to make sure the back door was unlocked—what people see in him and Jemma, he’s seeing between Agent Barton and Agent Romanoff now. Love doesn’t always look the same, but there’s no disguising partnership that grows to something else.

The food and his family arrived a minute later, and Fitz dashed out to the stables to tell Stark dinner was ready. Stark waved him away. “Almost done here,” he said, his back to the door as he manipulated something at the holotable. “Not that hungry anyway. Don’t like to eat before a fight, if I can help it. Too much opportunity to vomit afterward.”

“But you don’t think it’ll be a big fight,” Fitz said, leaning against the door jamb to get a better view of whatever Stark was working on. “Not technologically savvy aliens, and all?”

“No, no. But any fight’s a fight, you know. It doesn’t take much. And sometimes stupid things happen.”

Fitz knew, better than many people, just how often stupid things happened in battles. They hadn’t given up SHIELD just because they were bored. And now, of course, they would never risk it, never even think of it—and Stark had a son, too. “Why do you keep doing it, then?” he heard himself asking. He wished the question back as soon as it left his mouth.

Stark stopped and looked over his shoulder. One corner of his mouth turned up, but he wasn’t smiling. “I don’t know. Why do you still work for SHIELD even though you’ve got this cushy set-up and no one would blame you if you didn’t?”

“Sometimes things have to be done,” Fitz said.

“It’s an answer.” Stark turned back to the project, canting his head to look at it. “And sometimes there’s no one else to do them. Is it cool if I finish this?”

“Yeah,” Fitz said, knowing when he was being warned off. “Take however long you want. The stuff’ll be ready in an hour or so, though. Probably not longer than that.”

If he hadn’t been listening for it, he wouldn’t have heard the tremble in Stark’s voice: “Scout’s honor, we will be out of your hair as soon as it’s ready.”

“Take your time,” Fitz said again, and was surprised to find that he meant it.

Whatever Stark’s project was, it kept him in the lab long past the disappearance of the lamb ragoon and chicken tikka masala—though he did manage to partake of the Gü Jemma had had the foresight to pick up on her errands.

“I always say,” Agent Romanoff said, scraping out her dish, “English desserts are unbeatable for quality to price.”

“Is Gü English?” Agent Barton asked. Agent Romanoff shot him a look.

Deke nodded his agreement. “Though technically we’re in Scotland, I totally agree. You can get good dessert almost anywhere, but £1 pie is not something to ignore.”

“But then, you ate Twinkies from thirty years ago,” Fitz put in.

“And I’m fine!”

Jemma set her own spoon in her ramekin and slipped out from her spot on the bench, holding out her arms for Georgie. “I’m so sorry to eat and run, but it’s bedtime for young madam. And young sir, as well, if he wants Neffer to tell him some stories.”

Archie nearly faceplanted on the table in his haste to get down, and Fitz had to help him untangle from his napkin. “It’ll just be a few minutes,” he said, putting Archie under his arm. “Feel free to make tea or coffee or whatever.”

“Thanks.” Agent Romanoff stood as well, rolling her shoulders and casting a significant glance at the microwave clock. “We actually need to get going ourselves, or we’ll be late.”

“Late for what?” Deke asked. They ignored him.

“True, true,” Tony Stark said, “not that it hasn’t been fun, kids, but our gear’s done baking and duty calls.”

Agent Barton unfolded himself and took a final swig of his Zima. “Is there a gas station around? We’ll need a fill-up to get anywhere.”

“I know!” Deke said, putting his hand in the air. “I’ll tell them, Gramps. You take Bobo up.”

Fitz definitely saw Stark mouth _Gramps_ , but pointedly didn’t react. Juggling Archie to the side, he stuck his hand out to Agent Barton. “Good luck,” he said, speaking to Agent Romanoff and Stark as well. “I hope everything goes well.”

“I’m sure it will,” Agent Barton said. “And don’t forget to look into the conservatory idea.”

Agent Romanoff shook his hand as well, then waved at Georgie and bent over to make eye contact with Archie. “Keep up those cartwheels. The best way to keep feeling young is to maintain your flexibility.”

“Or take caffeine pills,” Stark said.

Archie wriggled his way back around. “Thank you, Mr. Hawkeye! Thank you, Natasha!”

Fitz only barely kept himself from emulating Stark and mouthing _Natasha_. Even Jemma blinked twice, but managed to say her goodbyes as though they happened every day. “Do stop in on your way back, if you have time,” she said graciously.

Agent Romanoff nodded. “Thanks, but I imagine we’ll have a ride.”

“Oh, of course. Well, anytime, then.”

_Anytime_ , Fitz pondered as they bathed and brushed and dressed and kissed their children, so technically, they had just extended an open invitation to some of the most dangerous and notorious people in the world. The invitation would likely never be taken up, of course, but once it was out there, it couldn’t be taken back. He tried to imagine a world in which Stark slammed through the back door in the middle of breakfast, or Agent Romanoff dropped from nowhere while they were weeding the garden, or one of Hawkeye’s arrows pierced the wooden frame of their door with an urgent cry for help. And yet that world didn’t seem as real as one in which they stopped by for an afternoon to get some first aid and teach Georgie how to walk a tightrope (though he hoped if that happened he wouldn’t know about it until it was over). They were Avengers—even still—but they were also people, weren’t they? People he could know. People he could like. People, he realized, he wouldn’t mind seeing again.

So yeah, it had definitely been in his top five of _what the flipping heck_ days. But Fitz didn’t need the message Stark left stuck to the holotable—“I made you a thing to help boost your 3-D printing capabilities. We’ve used them at Stark for years, but they aren’t available publicly”—to know it was also in one of his top ten good ones.


End file.
